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Radio Transmissions

Gulf War One, cruising back to our base at Al Jubail when a US helicopter pitched up on Tower frequency with a languid southern drawl.
"Jubail Tower this is Dustoff, request join." American controller replies.
"Dustoff this Jubail Tower, authenticate Hotel Mike." Silence.
"Tower, we're army aviation out in the desert and we don't have that stuff."
"Dustoff authenticate Kilo Romeo." Replied tower with urgency. Silence. We began to look around for the inevitable fireball as some trigger-happy yank took out this unidentified chopper.
"Sir, like I said we ain't got no crypto." I could almost hear the thinks bubble in the tower.
"OK Dustoff, who won the Super Bowl in 88?"
"Ah, sir, that'd be the Washington Redskins!"
"Roger Dustoff, you're clear join!"

We were thankful that we did have the crypto as my knowledge of American Football is non-existent.

However, reality of a sort intervenes and during Gulf War 1, we had to contact all merchant ships we flew past on Ch16 and ascertain their cargo, port of departure and port of destination. On flying past a ship, we would read the ship's name from the information painted on the hull, pass it to the tac nav who would initiate the call. In boredom, again drawing on an old and tired RT story, one LPG carrier's name was given as the letters painted on the bridge as - 'The Nosmo King'. Once the overworked tac Nav tried calling this callsign on Ch16, it opened the flood gates for the invention of spurious names such as 'Nopar King' and 'Esso Ottineer' along with the likes of 'Miar Sole'. To hear a senior nav call that his ar****le was on Ch 16 amused us during hours of tedium checking up to 136 contacts in a 4hr sortie. This led to competition between the tac nav and observers - be they flight deck or beam lookouts, to invent the most imaginable names and a pint waiting on detection or not. Simple things eh?

US Army Cobra helicopter....smacks the runway out of control and proceeds to put on a real show tearing itself to pieces as it rolls, tumbles,and otherwise thrashes itself to death. Tower Operator seeing the start of the fun....very quickly makes a radio call.

Junior operator on a Shackleton AEW crew carrying out voice crosstell to Buchan during a busy "Mallet Blow" exercise. Unfortunately he misinterpreted his chinagraph scrawl on the radar screen leading to the transmission:

"Buchan this is Anyface. Previously reported new track 612 is actually track friend 607. Track faker 603 should be faker 602. New track 612 is spurious..... Do you over-stand, under?"

During a boring boat-spotting exercise in the Tin Triangle, it is time for the Commissioned Fuse Changer to broadcast the information to all and sundry on the exercise frequency...

"All stations, Disport opens....yak yak yak...." and he drones on for several minutes of alphanumeric utterances, before finally ".....Disport closes".

Quick as a flash "Err, this is Midland Radar. I guess that wasn't for us?"

On another occasion, OC10 Sqn Steve D****l is at the helm of a shiny Vickers FunBus and launches into a spiel about "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking......." at the end of which he hears an ominous 'click'.

"Oh bugger", he muses, "switch pigs". Sure enough, a few seconds later, "Ascot ****, this is Ascot ****. That was a really beautiful pax brief, but you're actually on Brize Tower!"

"Cranfield Tower, Bedsair Charlie Mike, engine failure...request advice"
"Bedsair Charlie Mike, Roger. State position and intentions"
"Charlie Mike....I've just turned off onto the taxyway and the engine has stopped."
"Have you tried restarting?"
"Negative"
"Well, do so! If it starts, continue taxying!"

1976 from a Hunter pilot:

"Brawdy Tower, this is Red 2. I think I'm going to crash...." Shortly followed by:
"I just have! Could you send a fire wagon?".

He'd just started taxying, one brake seized and he swung into the adjacent aircraft before he could stop.

Waiting at the hold at an RAFG station on our way home after yet another double IRT/Bierflug in the mighty VC10K, we are watching an Albert waddling rather uncertainly down the approach. It then smites the runway very hard indeed with clouds of tyre smoke; the wings sag noticeably before it staggers back into the air...

"Tower, Ascot **** ready for departure. We'll need to pull forward of the RHAG.....and these newly formed craters" Peeved Herk QFI "We all had to learn once" Anonymous voice "Clearly!"

Much chuckling and we're on our way. But I've never seen such a heavy C-130 landing as I saw that day!

In an issue of the exercise Alpha codes in the late 80's , the authentication for 'A-RS' was 'E'. During the first exercise after they were issued, it was the only code used. Strangely, it changed soon after.

Flying Humberside's radar service a couple of years ago, director was vectoring a pass jet onto the ILS (or trying to). There had been a meet of microlights at a nearby airfield and about 10 departing motorised snot rags were all chatting to each other about what an wonderful day they had had etc on the director frequency.

Harrased controller told them to clear frequency immediately, followed by a GA guy transmitting for a good 10 seconds saying he had never heard such terrible radio discipline and they were a disgrace blah blah. Humberside director much wailing and gnashing of teeth by this point...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crossing a certain airport's CAS recently on a VFR clearance but murky day.

My home airfield. Often told to orbit a certain point inbound while they deal with the heavy stuff. After one such hold, orbiting for around 10 minutes and all quiet on the radio front I thought I ought to drop a hint